Bhopal Things to Do

Manua Bhan Ki Tekri, is a Jain temple and pilgrimage destination. It offers tourists a panoramic view of the Bhopal lakes and city. There is a footpath or cable car to the top. Even if you do not go to the top (I did not go up) you can at least be aware of it. This photo is the view of Manua Bhan Ki Tekri from the Raja Bhoj Airport and you can see it from many different places.

Bhojpur is about 28 kms from Bhopal and a great day trip.
It was founded by the Raja Bhoj , and is an architectural feat with those giant stone slabs.
The magnificent Shiva Temple draws thousands of devotees and tourists from far, all year long.
Temple's structure towers to a height of 66 feet. The dome was never completed, yet the beauty of it is captivating. The dome is supported by four richly carved pillars. The architecture of the temple fascinates not only visitors but archeologists as well.

Cyclopean Dam

Considered to be a marvel during olden times, the great dam now lay in ruins on the western side of Bhojpur. The dam was built on a vast lake which is no more there. Huge hills enclosed the entire area from all sides, but two big gaps were there that were blocked by different dams. The earthen dams were huge with the bigger one being 44 feet high and 300 feet thick and the smaller one being 24 feet high and 100 feet wide. The construction of the dams was done without using mortar. The dams held up water of about 250 square miles.

Fun city, an amusement park, built in the outskirts of Bhopal is a wonderful place to spend a weekend with kids and grown ups, both assured of a great time.

We especially enjoyed the Waves pool, resembling the ocean waves. Other notable rides were the RODEO which my kids kept riding back to back till they almost passes out. Beware it may not be a good idea for the weak at heart. Also Family Dutchman, Go Karts were a hit for the children.

Decent rest rooms and sumptous cuisine at the on site restaurant made sure we stayed well tanked all day long. Lush greens and well landscaped gardens under shady trees gave us enough down time to recharge ourselves.

You can still see the site of the Union carbide factory explosion from a road that runs past it. The devastation is also very clear from a breif look at google earth.

Whilst not a tourist site in the conventional sense, I feel that that the senseless waste of human life demands our respect, in much the same way that we might wish to respect the dead on battlefield sites or concentration camps.

When the place was blown apart in December 1984, it sent a moral shock-wave throughout the world regarding the morality of big corporations. Some Indian sources say 8,000 died on the day and many more via birth defects and infection of groundwater ever since. Union carbide itself reached an out-of-court judgement with the Indian state. Despite that the ex-head of the corportaion remains a fugitive from the grip of the Indian Legal system for mass homicide - he lives freely in the US.

Union carbide itself still exists, and on it's website claims that 3,800 died that fateful day. It also claims it was due to industrial sabotage rather than negligence. This is a company that began by building a three mile tunnel for a project in West Vigina in 1927. The management wore mask on any brief inspection visit. The miners, mainly poor and black, had no such protection. Thousands died of silicosis and other associated diseases.